Developing your public health skills

There are many opportunities available for you to develop your public health skills as an individual, a Community Champion or as a team.

Opportunities for individuals

We subsidise a number of training and awareness programmes in health improvement, health education and public health. These are provided by Wellbeing for Life and are free for you to attend.

The training will provide you with the opportunity to increase your knowledge and skills in health improvement and community related subjects.

There are short courses in subjects such as mental health awareness, healthy eating, stigma and discrimination, self harm awareness and response and suicide awareness.

There are also a number on free online courses providing an introduction to public health which you can find on our Courses in Public Health page.

Sign up to be a Community Champion

Originally introduced to help respond to Covid-19, our Community Champions help us to reach out into communities with the latest public health guidance and advice.

Volunteering to become a community champion will entitle you to access to training programmes to develop your public health skills. This can include training in mental health, financial management, dealing with cancer and other subjects.

Such training is part of our Making Every Contact Count (MECC) programme, making sure that you have the appropriate skills and knowledge for the role.

If you are interested in becoming a Community Champion then please visit our Sign up to be a County Durham Together Community Champion page to learn more about the role and how you can volunteer.

Opportunities for teams

If you are an organisation looking to support the training and development of your staff, we also subsidise courses for teams through Wellbeing for Life.

This includes training such as Making Every Contact Count and Mental Health First Aid.

Training can be offered online or in person.